Boowinda Gorge

At the top of Canarvon Gorge, just before the campsite you have to hike 10km to get to, is a side-gorge called Boowinda Gorge.

It's kilometres long in its own right - I assume - and the floor is covered in grey boulders which are somewhat trying to walk on. The walls alternate between rocky and mossy and not much light makes it to the floor. Sometimes around a corner a tree or small clump of bushes or ferns will grow, presumably where moisture collects.

I spent a little while here doing assignment stuff until the batteries ran out loading film and I was forced to retreat a tout vitesse to the bottom to catch the camper back to camp to get new ones.

Carnarvon Gorge

Here is a view from some stepping stones about half-way up the gorge.

The next day I had an assignment to do for college which involved telling the story of a day in my life, so mysteriously I elected to get up at 5am to watch sunrise then hitched a lift up to the Gorge and walked all the way up it and down it.

And yes, I hurt by the end of it.

Eloise and Mum had some quality time together playing in the creek and so on; we met up mid-afternoon and Mum took a walk while I entertained Eloise and got a new battery for my camera.

Carnarvon Gorge, Attempt One

In the evening, after a heart meal, we went to see a slideshow at the campsite given by a National Park Ranger which went into the history of Carnarvon Gorge and various bits and bobs about it.

It seems like it's a watershed which feeds rivers which flow widely across Australia and is a canyon which stretches 10km up into the tablelands of the Great Dividing Range, with imposing sandstone cliffs and side gorges which, due to their particular locations and conditions are little microclimates containing pockets of rainforest.

There were floods a couple of years ago where a year-and-a-half's worth of rain fell in less than three months, and consequently the Gorge itself was pretty much gutted by the tumultuous flash floods which ripped through it, leaving trees scattered left right and probably centre too.

It was a centre of Indigenous ceremony and there are a couple of places up it where there are great examples of Aboriginal rock art.

So armed with this the next day in the afternoon we made our first attempt at getting up it, and a magnificent place it is too. The path runs up the creek which flows down it and crosses across may many times via stepping stones, which Eloise found to be most amusing.

However the first point of high interest, the Moss Garden, is a 5km hike from the bottom and it soon became clear that Eloise wasn't really up for that, so after 3km or so I forged ahead and climbed up a steep side-gorge to find a little waterfall in a rocky niche with damp mosses draped all round. Very peaceful.

I caught up with Eloise and Mum on the way down again, and we drove the Camper back down to the campsite, stopping off on the way to book a table at the local restaurant where we ate some nice food.

Driving Day Number Two

In the morning we got up bright and early as it was driving day number two: destination Carnarvon Gorge.

The previous night had been heavily overcast but it seemed that the clouds were bubbling up over the Bunya Mountains because we were soon out from underneath the cloud cover and looking out West where the clear air allowed a view which stretched almost exactly as far as the eye could see.

Soon we were down on the plains and Mum and I shared the drive which took us through Dalby - brief stop at Coles for provisions - then Chinchilla, Miles, Roma, Injune and up the road to Carnarvon Gorge where after a bumpy ride down an unsealed gravel road for 20km or so we arrived at the camp site at around 5 o'clock.

So just the nine hours on the road then.

More Forest Walking

And the next day we went for a second attempt at the circuit walk, at around 5km.

And Eloise spent a pretty good portion of it on my shoulders.

In the Fig Of It

On our morning walk the path ran right through the trunk of an enormous strangler fig tree.

Night Sky in the Bunya Mountains

When the sun set and you looked into the sky it was pretty impressive...

Bright and Early

Having gone to bed in an unfamiliar environment, sleep was intermittent, interrupted as it was by kicking legs (Eloise's) and snoring (Mother's) and buzzing (Van fridge) and the ubiquitous bird life.

When we woke up in the morning, fuzzy-eyed, we parted the curtains to see a beautifully green campsite surrounded by forest and staked out by lots of wallabies who were wandering around, some with little joeys poking their little heads out of pouches, munching away at the grass.

So excellent chasing material then.

Eloise was making friends pretty soon but with kids who were leaving so we ate our breakfast and trundled off into the woods.

The Bunya Mountains' claim to fame, other than being the second National Park instituted, it's the single largest colony - if that's the word - or stand - which is the word that all the books use - of Bunya Pine trees in the world, and there aren't many colonies left.

And the Bunya Pine trees are pretty cool, towering into the sky on statuesque trunks with elephants' feet wrinkles at the bottom and distinctive foliage up there above the rest of the rainforest. And they brew cones that weigh 10kg and drop down a hundred feet like rocks so tread carefully in the new year.

We didn't make it very far though, before Eloise's batteries ran out and we had to hoof it home (several hours later as it happened) for coffee and chips and a sleep.

Eloise made another friend in the afternoon who she knocked about with under Grandmotherly supervision whilst I wandered off into the forest and stomped around a circuit for 5km or so.

Did I mention that the day before Mum arrived I hurt my knee inexplicably by climbing up and down steep hills? Well this day my knee was hurting like hell and I wasn't very happy about that, but grinning and bearing it anyway.

Bunya Mountains

We were climbing the steep mountain road as the sun set and night fell and had to find our camping space in the dark, and reconfigure the campervan into sleeping mode, brush our teeth, and cook our tea by the light of our campervan lights, and after driving for so long sleep wasn't that far behind.

Eloise was very excited about the whole camping thing and wanted to go out into the campsite to play with the children - all of whom had luminous toys - but all I wanted to do was conk out. So I did.

Road Trip

Mum arrived on the morning of Thursday last, I think it was, and we merrily picked her up from the airport at some ungodly hour in the morning. We were late, and found her patiently waiting for us.

We got home and unpacked, then went to the beach where we messed around some. Mum had taken some homeopathic potion for jetlag and it seemed to do the trick as she made it through to the evening.

On Friday I had a little field trip booked with my photo friends so we all trooped up to Mount Glorious for a coffee then had a walk around in the rainforest before Mum, Nicole and Eloise trooped back down the mountain to have their fun while Nicole went to work and my little threesome went frolicking around stream beds and waterfalls inspecting the roots of the rainforest gums.

Saturday was the dig day and we picked up our little campervan at midday. The plan was to get to the Bunya Mountains before sundown, but this was not to be as packing took a little longer than anticipated and the Satnav we'd hired got us comprehensivley lost around the roadworks in the city.

But once out of the city we haded out past Ipswich then up into the mountains and through Toowoomba then back down the other side and several hours later up to the Bunya Mountains.